As Much As We Sometimes Roll Our

I Love Those Stretches Where I've Just Been A Writer - When I Haven't Been Doing Internet Start-ups - Where I Pretty Much Eliminate Meetings From My Life.

In A Peer Network, No One Is Officially In Charge. It Doesn't Have A Command Hierarchy. It Doesn't Have A Boss. So, All The Decisions Are Somehow Made Collectively. The Control Of The System Is In The Hands Of Everyone Who Is A Part Of It.

This Is How Great Intellectual Breakthroughs Usually Happen In Practice. It Is Rarely The Isolated Genius Having A Eureka Moment Alone In The Lab. Nor Is It Merely A Question Of Building On Precedent, Of Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants, In Newton's Famous Phrase. Great Breakthroughs Are Closer To What Happens In A Flood Plain: A Dozen Separate Tributaries Converge, And The Rising Waters Lift The Genius High Enough That He Or She Can See Around The Conceptual Obstructions Of The Age.

I Suspect Millions Of People From My Generation Probably Have Comparable Stories To Tell: If Not Of Sports Simulations Then Of Dungeons & Dragons, Or The Geopolitical Strategy Of Games Like Diplomacy, A Kind Of Chess Superimposed Onto Actual History.

If You Look At History, Innovation Doesn't Come Just From Giving People Incentives; It Comes From Creating Environments Where Their Ideas Can Connect.